How To Get More Members For Your Gym

If you own and operate a gym then you know how important it is to be constantly finding new members. Sadly, people quit going to the gym all the time — and you need to find new people to take their place. But you’re not a marketer. You don’t have the time or money to be cold calling and reaching out to people.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a process that automatically captures leads for you?

Or something you could ‘set-and-forget’? Even better.

By using only a few tools and the reach of online marketing you’ll be able to easily set up a process to capture leads for your gym.

Here’s what we’ll cover in this walk-through:

Creating a lead magnet

Employing a landing page

Using popups

Testing and nurturing

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Creating a Valuable Lead Magnet

First, what is a lead magnet?

A lead magnet is something of value that your site visitor receives in exchange for lead information. When someone arrives on your landing page they'll be asked for something like their email or phone number and receive something in return — a “magnet” for your leads.

A lead magnet sounds great and all, but what exactly should I offer?

A free trial to your gym of course! What better way for someone to get a sense of the great fitness experience you offer than a free trial to your gym. This way people can try out your equipment, speak to your staff, and see why your gym is the best in the area.

The process of offering a free trial goes something like this:

Place an ad on Google, Facebook, or in partnership with a health and fitness business in your gym’s area.

Direct all traffic to a landing page for a free trial to your gym.
Landing page visitors give you their email and receive the free trial pass.

Visitors come in and show the pass at your gym for a free five days.

You collect their contact information and sell them on a membership.
Jackpot. They become a member at your gym.

Though this is the most popular lead magnet, it’s not the only lead magnet you can offer. The goal is to get people through the door so that you can interact with them in person and collect their information. Then you can contact them further down the road and convert them into a paying member.

Here are some other lead magnet ideas you could use:

Free fitness assessment — "Come in and we’ll assess your fitness level and tell you how you should be training."

Free personal training session — "Come in and experience a full personal training session with one of our knowledgeable training staff members."

Free goal assessment — "Come in and tell us about your fitness goals and we’ll tell you how to get there."

Free workout plan — "Come in a tell us about your goals and we’ll devise a workout plan perfectly tailored for your goals."

Free couple’s workout — "Come in with a workout partner and both of you can workout for free."

Free branded swag — "Come in for a free trial and receive a free branded shirt."

Contest entry — "Come in and activate a free trial pass and be entered to win ______________."

Let’s look at an example from one of the leading fitness providers in the world, Goodlife Fitness:

Goodlife creates massive value with the lead magnets on their landing page. This one in particular is for a three day trial pass to all of their gyms. Visitors simply have to enter in their information to be sent a pass and enjoy three days free.

Below their form they have a blurb about their unique selling point (USP) aka “why Goodlife is the best”. Below that they have a list of the featured amenities that members have access to.

The entire landing page has been built to attract leads and convert visitors into free trial members.

Goodlife will then pass these free trial leads off to their sales teams and add them to their email list. If the visitor doesn’t activate the free pass or sign up after the free trial, then Goodlife can alert them of any promotions through email.

Creating a Landing Page for Your Lead Magnet

After you decide what your lead magnet is going to be, you’ll need to make a landing page to collect all the leads you’ll be getting.

To maximize the amount of leads you receive we want to send people to a dedicated landing page instead of your website’s homepage. This is because dedicated landing pages have only one conversion goal: to collect leads.

We don’t want people leaving the page without giving their information and converting into a lead. Whereas your homepage has too many other pages and distractions.

I suggest starting with this fitness themed landing page on Wishpond’s landing page builder. A pre-built template is a great way to start because the design has already been optimized to collect leads.

This means it’s built with strategically-placed forms, headlines, photos, and call to actions to maximize sign-ups. In other words, it’s built to convert.

When you’re inserting information onto your landing page, make sure that your headline matches the headline on your advertisement so your visitor is not confused when they arrive. Failing to do so gives users a poor user experience. If your visitor clicked on an ad for a free trial pass they would expect to see a headline with something to the effect of “free trial pass,” not “become a member right now.”

Try to build your form with as few fields as possible to ensure that it is completed with the least amount of friction. Include fields like first name, last name, gender, city, and email. To keep things simple, only capture the information you’ll need to close a sale.

Below the form, use a precise call to action button so the visitor knows what to do. Something like “submit” is not specific enough, instead use something like “get my free pass now”. The clearer and more action oriented your call to action is the more likely your visitor is to convert into a free trial pass member.

Using a Popup on Your Website

Aside from using a landing pages to collect leads with your lead magnet, having a popup installed on your website can do wonders for your lead generation because they command action.

By using something like an entry popup, which displays immediately when the visitor arrives, everyone can be alerted to your free trial pass promotion. Rather than having a small passive ad promoting your free trial pass on the sidebar, a popup will take up the whole screen.

Other types of pop ups include:

Timed popup — Displays after a set period of time on the page.

Scroll popup — Displays after the user scrolls a set amount of the page.

Click popup — Displays after the user clicks on something linked to the pop up.

Exit popup — Displays when the user goes to exit or close the page.

Testing and Nurturing

Once you’ve set up landing pages for your ads and installed a popup on your website you’re good to go. After a set period of time, let’s say three months, you can modify an element on the landing page and popup to see if that increases or decreases the amount of leads you receive.

This is called A/B testing, and it's a crucial element of a landing page strategy

To A/B test your landing page and popups you can try changing things like the copy, the imagery, or even the lead magnet. See what performs best for the audience you serve and go with the winner.

The information you collect with your landing pages and popups will continue to grow and develop. When you decide to run more promotions you’ll be able to alert your email list with updates. This is called customer relationship management.

Going forward and nurturing the list of contacts you’ve gathered will undoubtedly have positive rewards. Stay in contact with your email list as best as possible. People who are on the fence can be influenced by further communication with your business.

A summer promotion, for example, can be exactly what someone was waiting for. The key is to keep your gym in the mind of your leads. Sharing health and fitness tips or advice with your email list is a great way to keep in touch. Eventually, when they are ready to sign up at a gym, yours will be the first to come to mind.

It’s Action Time

Managing a gym while finding the time to collect new leads is next to impossible. That’s why it is invaluable to have the tools to simplify the lead generation process. It takes time to get the it all running smoothly, don’t get me wrong, but after it’s nailed down, it pays in dividends.

An optimized lead-generating sales funnel means having a constant stream of interested clients to contact for little to no work aside from the initial setup process. The key strategy is to have ads that lead to dedicated landing pages running constantly to capture the information of people interested in gyms in your area.

Start by figuring out a valuable lead magnet, like a free trial pass. Then create some simple ads and direct them to a landing page. Begin by using a landing page template to make the design process easier for yourself. Promote your lead magnet as much as possible in all of your marketing channels so that people are aware of the free value you are offering.

Install a popup on your website to collect even more leads and spend time nurturing your email list until they are ready to sign-up. Then sit back and watch as the leads start rolling in.

I hope this walkthrough simplified the process of generating leads online for your gym. The process of setting up a channel to collect leads does not have to be complicated. With just a little time and a few simple tools you can quickly start collecting leads.